This authentication credential checker takes authentication information (most often a username) and a password, and attempts to validate the password provided against the user retrieved from the store.

The password module is capable of working with several different password encryption/hashing algorithms. The one the module uses is determined by the credential configuration.

Those who have used Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication prior to the 0.10 release should note that the password field and type information is no longer part of the store configuration and is now part of the Password credential configuration.

The classname used for Credential. This is part of Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication and is the method by which Catalyst::Authentication::Credential::Password is loaded as the credential validator. For this module to be used, this must be set to 'Password'.

The field in the user object that contains the password. This will vary depending on the storage class used, but is most likely something like 'password'. In fact, this is so common that if this is left out of the config, it defaults to 'password'. This field is obtained from the user object using the get() method. Essentially: $user->get('passwordfieldname'); NOTE If the password_field is something other than 'password', you must be sure to use that same field name when calling $c->authenticate().

This sets the password type. Often passwords are stored in crypted or hashed formats. In order for the password module to verify the plaintext password passed in, it must be told what format the password will be in when it is retreived from the user object. The supported options are:

The password in user is in salted hash format, and will be validated using Crypt::SaltedHash. If this password type is selected, you should also provide the password_salt_len config element to define the salt length.

The Password credential module is very simple to use. Once configured as indicated above, authenticating using this module is simply a matter of calling $c->authenticate() with an authinfo hashref that includes the password element. The password element should contain the password supplied by the user to be authenticated, in clear text. The other information supplied in the auth hash is ignored by the Password module, and simply passed to the auth store to be used to retrieve the user. An example call follows:

There are no publicly exported routines in the Password module (or indeed in most credential modules.) However, below is a description of the routines required by Catalyst::Plugin::Authentication for all credential modules.

Instantiate a new Password object using the configuration hash provided in $config. A reference to the application is provided as the second argument. Note to credential module authors: new() is called during the application's plugin setup phase, which is before the application specific controllers are loaded. The practical upshot of this is that things like $c->model(...) will not function as expected.